IRVINE, Calif., Jan. 22, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --WD, a Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC) company, announced an expansion of its product portfolio addressing small- and medium-sized businesses with the addition of network backup software and appliances from Arkeia Software, Inc., a privately held data protection company based in Carlsbad, Calif., recently acquired by WD. WD also announced that the Arkeia Network Backup version 10.0 software, for which a release candidate was delivered in Dec. 2012, becomes generally available (www.arkeia.com/new-in-v100) today.

"Arkeia's products expand WD's growing product portfolio of solutions for small- and medium-sized businesses," said Jim Welsh, executive vice president and general manager of WD's Branded and CE products. "SMB organizations are managing ever-growing volumes of critical business data, which need to be stored, shared and secured. Our easy-to-manage small storage server, WD Sentinel DX4000, provides backup and storage centralization capabilities for small businesses and workgroups, while Arkeia's network backup software provides a more feature-rich data-protection solution for larger SMB customers."

Arkeia's software, appliances and virtual appliances back up data to disk, tape and cloud storage. The company's patented Progressive Deduplication technology speeds hybrid-cloud backup by reducing the bandwidth necessary to replicate backup sets over wide area networks. Arkeia sells its products worldwide through resellers and managed service providers.

The acquisition was completed through a merger transaction, encompassing all of the employees, technology and products of Arkeia. Arkeia will be integrated into WD's Branded Products SMB unit and the products initially will retain the Arkeia name. WD will support all Arkeia customers on current maintenance and plans to retain both Arkeia's software and appliance product lines. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

"Joining WD gives the Arkeia team a great opportunity to accelerate adoption of Arkeia's innovative technologies and products," said Bill Evans, senior director of worldwide software marketing at WD and former CEO of Arkeia Software. "The Arkeia team is delighted to be a part of WD. WD has chosen an ideal moment to invest in this critical product category as backup-to-disk solutions accelerate their displacement of backup-to-tape. WD's financial strength, engineering excellence and organizational discipline will take Arkeia's products and customers to the next level."

Arkeia Network Backup v10.0 General Availability

Arkeia Network Backup v10.0 enables hybrid cloud backups by allowing administrators to combine physical media and Internet transport to replicate backup sets to or from remote cloud storage. Leveraging Arkeia's advanced Progressive Deduplication technology, Arkeia Network Backup v10.0 permits SMB organizations to protect large data volumes in the cloud without incurring high monthly bandwidth charges. By allowing large backup sets to be moved on physical media and small backup sets to be sent over the wire, Arkeia makes it practical to replicate backup sets from a LAN to remote cloud storage for an inexpensive, tape-free alternative to off-site backup and recovery. More information can be found at: www.wd.com and www.arkeia.com.

About WD

WD, a Western Digital company, is a long-time innovator and storage industry leader. As a storage technology pacesetter, the company produces reliable, high-performance hard disk drives and solid state drives. These drives are deployed by OEMs and integrators in desktop and mobile computers, enterprise computing systems, embedded systems and consumer electronics applications, as well as by the company in providing its own storage products. WD's leading storage devices and systems, networking products, media players and software solutions empower people around the world to easily save, store, protect, share and experience their content on multiple devices. WD was established in 1970 and is headquartered in Irvine, Calif. For more information, please visit the company's website at www.wd.com.

Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC), Irvine, Calif., is a global provider of products and services that empower people to create, manage, experience and preserve digital content. Its companies design and manufacture storage devices, networking equipment and home entertainment products under the WD, HGST and G-Technology brands. Visit the Investor section of the company's website (www.westerndigital.com) to access a variety of financial and investor information.

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements include statements concerning the anticipated benefits of the Arkeia acquisition and management's anticipated plans and strategies for the Arkeia business. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements, including the possibility that the expected benefits of the acquisition may not materialize as expected; failure to successfully integrate Arkeia's products, capabilities and employees with WD; and other risks and uncertainties listed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), including the company's recent Form 10-Q filed with the SEC on Nov. 2, 2012, to which your attention is directed. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof, and the company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.

Western Digital, WD, the WD logo and Arkeia are registered trademarks in the U.S. and other countries; WD Sentinel and Progressive Deduplication are trademarks of Western Digital Technologies, Inc.